Advances in Wireless Mesh Networks

摘要

Wireless mesh networks facilitate the extension of wireless local area networks into wide areas and have emerged as a promising approach for future network accesses. Prior efforts on wireless networks, especially multi-hop ad hoc networks, have led to significant research contributions that range from fundamental results on theoretical capacity bounds to numerous practical routing and transport protocols. Unlike ad hoc networks, however, mesh networks can serve as access networks that employ multi-hop wireless forwarding by fixed mesh nodes to relay traffic to and from the wired Internet. The unique features of wireless mesh networks pose challenges in designing affordable, reliable, and sustainable network infrastructures. The critical issues span a rich spectrum of issues from interference-aware channel assignment, multi-hop routing, to reliable transport and infrastructure optimization, many of which have to be revisited in this new context.